Record-Eagle Blogs - Latest Comments

Re: Eco-Religion

Ed Hahnenberg — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:58:19 -0000

Emeritus...You and Taylor ought to analyze each other's reasoning. THAT would be fascinating! I do like your last paragraph, except I would demur on your last two sentences. Theories can be proved to a point by inductive reasoning. I would agree that just because a person observes a number of situations in which a pattern exists doesn't mean that that pattern is true for all situations, however many existentially operative conclusions in the world we experience have been arrived at by the method of experimental observations.

Re: Eco-Religion

Ed Hahnenberg — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:50:48 -0000

Taylor...Paragraph one: You are not an atheist, but rather an agnostic. You simply do not know that God exists. Fair enough. Your reason? God is not testable. To that statement, I might agree except for the experiences of miracles by those who believe in God. Some of my conviction that God exists comes from faith, some from private experience. However, even without theology, Aristotelian logic of the uncaused mover, further elaborated on by Aquinas, is to me proof of the existence of at least an uncaused Cause.

Paragraph two: You present a typical and logical questioning as to how can we be sure that the Bible contains God's revelation. I invite you to explore the historical-critical method of interpreting scripture. I have a YouTube series which I blogged about earlier that gets into form criticism, hermeneutics, and the Sitz im Leben of many of the writings in the Old Testament...http://blogs.record-eagle.com/?p=7333.

Paragraph three: There is no infallible interpretation of scripture. Only Christian fundamentalists would hold that today. Judeo-Christian scripture is inspired by God, but written by men with their limited knowledge of language, history, and through the prism of their own life-experience. Moses' birth circumstance may not have been known, for example, so the writers (four groups it is thought) borrowed from the pagan story of a King Sargon. The destruction of Sodom may never have occurred, but was based on an etiology derived from the salt pillars near the ancient city. In all of the stories in the OT, we find, however, a focus on a monotheistic deity, many of which point to fulfillment in the NT in the person of Christ.

Re: Embracing my chaos

Gloria — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:47:03 -0000

Even though I am a super organized person, I can still relate to this post. Arms full, two Shelties straining their leashes, and always in a rush. My ex-husband claims I was late to our wedding--not true--I was early that day. I was also early when I worked for someone else. Back in the very dark ages of the1960s I was a long distance operator and an answering service operator and learned to "overlap" now commonly known as multi-tasking. I never thought about it being chaotic or enjoying the rush but I did think it was all part of being a Type A trying to get every bit out of every moment of this great life. I have been working on developing my Type B side these last couple of years with, at best, modest success. Enjoy who you are and keep tweaking it to allow for the fullest expression of who you are.

Re: Value for Money

Bob — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:01:45 -0000

Yes, I intended to say manner however I like the poetry of manor so we can chalk it up as fortuitous.

Re: Value for Money

Bob — Wed, 16 May 2012 08:17:52 -0000

CSL
The USPS is an old and cherished institution. It is losing money irrespective of the mandated payments to fund its pensions. Given this the question is what should be done about it. Do we maintain what everyone treats as a partial fiction that it is a private business independent of the federal government and let it go bankrupt and reorganize or liquidate on its own merits as a business? Do we shed the fiction and pull it fully back in the government? If so, how much is it worth to the taxpayers to continue to operate it in its current money loosing manor? Perhaps there is a third way something like what has been done for the auto industry. I want it to fail no more than I wanted GM or Chrysler to fail.

The economy and the communications revolution conspire to drop the revenue of the post office. We can hope the former changes soon, but in any case the latter will not go away. Putting our heads in the sand will not change things.

USPS 1/4 results:
http://www.reuters.com/article...

Postal serveice loss clock:
http://www.carper.senate.gov/p...

Re: Embracing my chaos

Mom — Tue, 15 May 2012 21:20:55 -0000

So that is the answer to the age old question, WHAT IS SHE THINKING????????

Re: Embracing my chaos

Joe Durocher — Tue, 15 May 2012 21:00:57 -0000

How late were you in submitting this blog? :-)

Re: Value for Money

Cathy Stripe Lester — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:59:40 -0000

I don't think the Postal Regulatory Commission put the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act into place. They just have to deal with the consequences. Right now they're trying desperately to shave costs in order to pay the pre-paid health benefits.

Re: Eco-Religion

Emeritus — Tue, 15 May 2012 16:41:09 -0000

From this interesting reasoning comes the "science" of astrology, or perhaps of phrenology? Oh dear If we go with humpty-dumpty the word becomes quite meaningless.
Mathematics in not considered a science by many scientists. (In spite of Gauss calling it the queen of the sciences. What would you expect? He was after all a mathematician!) Of course in the middle ages Theology was called Queen of the Sciences.
There is no Nobel Prize in mathematics. The Fields Medal will have to do, or perhaps the Wolf Prize. Mathematics is seen by many as largely a system of tautologies, useful of course but hardly a science. Many see it an an art. Harvard offers an A.B. in mathematics.
Science is seen as a series of interlocking concepts called a theory from which are deduced testable hypotheses. Successful tests of these hypotheses increase the validity and value of the theory. (Theories cannot be proved. Proof occurs only in mathematics.)

Re: Eco-Religion

Taylor — Tue, 15 May 2012 15:47:17 -0000

The law of non-contradiction is infinitely testable. Axioms of geometry are testable within the realm of geometric definition. God is not testable. That is not to say God or a god or gods do not exist. But we do not know because we can't verify. Logic is a method to deduce validity, it has no explanatory powers and isn't an entity. God is purported as sentient and omnipotent and the theory of God is used as an explanatory (not to mention legislative) tool. As such, to be indoctrinated, it should be verified.

Even if that were to happen, there would be then the task of proving the Christian God is the one true God and that what was written in the Bible was really his word and infallible, and that one, knowable, consistent interpretation of what was written in the Bible was really his intention. Not to mention the supporting text is from millenia ago, cultural light years away. To truly understand the text, we'd have to understand the cultures and contexts absolutely which is impossible given their temporal remoteness. We can't even fully understand contemporary cultures that differ from our own. But we digress.

Given the infinite complexity of first understanding beyond question that God is real and that he is the only God and the Christian God and that the Bible is his word and infallible (strange given that there are biblical contradictions) and there is one knowable, unwavering interpretation of the Bible that wholly captures his intentions, given all of that, does it seem dangerous, indeed, poor judgment, to forgo protection of something we know to be wholly necessary to our survival in the name of following our inescapably limited understanding (for, among other reasons, those surmised above) of a Christian God's doctrine? (This is not meant to be contentious or inflammatory. This is the matter as I see it)

Re: Value for Money

Emeritus — Tue, 15 May 2012 15:39:48 -0000

I get the impression that some may not know about the "Postal Regulatory Commission." This group of five political appointees, each serving for six years, determine postal rates, delivery schedules and many other things relating to the postal service. You can find out more about their function and how to contact them by going on the net.

Re: Alternative septic systems — what's 'holding' you back?

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Re: Value for Money

Cathy Stripe Lester — Tue, 15 May 2012 15:35:36 -0000

Gene, you're right.

Re: Value for Money

Cathy Stripe Lester — Tue, 15 May 2012 15:35:04 -0000

Thanks, Ed. The big problem remains the pre-paid health benefits... for the next 75 years. Fedex and UPS don't have that burden. In fact, I know of NO other business that's been saddled with it. Without it, USPS would be making money and wouldn't have to raise postage a jot. I can't understand how Congress put it in place in the first place... if they were being honest.

Re: Value for Money

GenePH — Tue, 15 May 2012 12:40:41 -0000

Congress kicked the can down the road. Didn't solve a single problem. It will be up to the next Congress and or President to get it fixed.

Re: Value for Money

Ed Hahnenberg — Tue, 15 May 2012 12:35:38 -0000

Cathy...I have little sympathy for closing down rural post offices or not delivering mail on Saturdays. Elderly folks still depend on the postal service for medication delivery and a host of other deliveries. If the service costs 7 billion a year, raise the cost of stamps. Junk mail providers should pay the same as personal letters. If it costs a dollar to send a letter, so be it. Other competitors like UPS could compete, but they are already partnering with USPS. Let the market determine the price.

Re: Eco-Religion

Ed Hahnenberg — Tue, 15 May 2012 12:07:11 -0000

Taylor...Then I guess I can conclude you are an atheist. "Science" can mean "knowledge of something"...from the Latin "scio" (I know). It does not have to be chemistry or biology or the demonstrable branches of learning that you might call science.

As to your other comment, you cannot verify the principle of non-contradiction, axioms of geometry, or proofs from causality, etc., so your existential reasoning goes. Au contraire, metaphysical verities are accepted without scientific proof because they are obvious to the rational mind.

Re: Eco-Religion

Taylor — Tue, 15 May 2012 08:59:30 -0000

"The science of theology?" I don't want to debate God's existence. As you said, ships in the night. But we can't know God exists through reason alone. To know something, we need verifiable evidence. It has to hold up to rigorous experimentation. Without this, you can only hypothesize. We didn't "know" gravity bent space-time just because Einstein reasoned it must be so. We had to test it. We had to verify it. When we saw stars beside a solar eclipse that ought to have been invisible behind it, we knew Einstein to be correct. If we can't know God exists, why would we sacrifice, in any way, the health of a thing that sustains us for the tenets of a single philosophy (among thousands) concerning an entity we have no objective reason to believe exists. Irrespective of God's existence or non-existence, the Earth must be primary. It is real. It is here. We are destroying it.

Re: Eco-Religion

Ed Hahnenberg — Tue, 15 May 2012 07:58:55 -0000

Emeritus...You are correct. The metaphors I used were overstated, especially about recycling, carpooling, and others...worthy environmental practices. My bad. However, I think you get the overarching theme of the blog.

Re: Eco-Religion

jeff4 — Tue, 15 May 2012 06:30:45 -0000

Faygots GenePH ??????????????? I thought you might be above using derogatory terms, guess I was wrong. I don't picture you as the name calling type in real life, but here I suppose its easy to hide behind a name.

Re: Eco-Religion

Bob — Mon, 14 May 2012 15:28:20 -0000

I believe that experiment has all ready been run and our ancestors gave it a pretty resounding rejection known as the Reconquista. Though it seems some have forgotten or fail to understand the lesson.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...
http://www.jihadwatch.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...

Re: Eco-Religion

Ed Hahnenberg — Mon, 14 May 2012 13:59:19 -0000

Mike..."Ilk" means "of that kind or class or viewpoint". Nothing derogatory meant if used in common parlance. You must have used an online translator to come up with your incorrect translation of your English comment, because your Latin sentence is a convolution of nonsense.

Re: Eco-Religion

Ed Hahnenberg — Mon, 14 May 2012 13:48:43 -0000

Taylor...If you cannot accept the concept of God or His revelation in Judeo-Christian Scripture, then we will continue to pass as ships in the night. From my view, both Plato and Aristotle, without any religious beliefs...and only from philosophy...accepted God's existence as the uncaused cause of motion. To both of them, God's existence was demonstrable from reason alone. The science of theology moved that philosophical reasoning to Judeo-Christian revelation in defining who God is.

Re: Eco-Religion

Emeritus — Mon, 14 May 2012 13:48:40 -0000

Aren't you straining a bit here? A lesson in Hebrew grammer is less relevant than the issue of what to do about resources once thought endless and now recognized by most (not all unfortunately) as finite and diminishing. You obviously recognize that exploitive growth is not sustainable. Unfortunately you feel a need to belittle many of those who oppose this exploitation by claiming it is for them an "eco-religion" with "ritualistic performances" and "holy days." I believe your background may help us understand this viewpoint. I doubt it will win you many converts.

Re: Eco-Religion

Taylor — Mon, 14 May 2012 11:01:37 -0000

Not that strange at all, really. Though I don't deify Earth, it grants life, it takes life, it recycles life (an afterlife). All of which is verifiable. It makes less sense to deify something that isn't verifiable. I'm confused why we as people don't operate from a position of knowledge. If we are to prioritize philosophies, it is rationally sound (not to mention eminently beneficial) to operationalize a philosophy (what you refer to as "eco-religion") that protects/sustains something we know to exist (Earth). Something which, in turn, allows us to exist. This seems self-evident. To sacrifice any attention, responsibility, and care for the Earth to worship something we have no evidence of is a travesty.